Franc Fernandez: Haute Headgear

As we reported last week, Grace Jones is charging back into the public consciousness with her new album—but for many in the fashion industry, she never left. One such designer is LA's Franc Fernandez, who counts Jones as the key muse for his new collection of headpieces, Blanc.

"The line really started with Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goude's video for 'Libertango,'" says Fernandez. "She wears a dunce hat in the shape of a tall, sharp pyramid, but it gets taken off in the beginning and you don't really see it. That image has always stuck in my mind." Taking further cues from musicians such as Róisín Murphy and Ebony Bones, Fernandez started creating headpieces to wear to LA's avant-garde Mustache Monday parties. His early pieces took the shape of oversized blocks made from basswood, an ultra-lightweight material used to make architectural models. Before long, the graphic-designer-by-day was contacted by progressive LA retailer New High Mart to contribute pieces for a pop-up shop dedicated to futuristic fashion—thereby giving birth to Blanc.

"I was going for a futuristic warrior theme, and right away, I thought of Grace Jones," explains Fernandez of his pieces for New High Mart, which feature sharp, triangular forms jutting forward "for charging purposes." It was around this time that his work caught the attention of local designer Brian Lichtenberg, who commissioned Fernandez to create a range of equally space-age pieces for his October show—think caged "motorcycle" helmets and crowns made from perilously stacked geometric shapes.

"No one in LA—or even the US in general—really wears hats any more, and when they do, they aren't as adventurous as they used to be in the late '80s, or today on the London club scene," explains Fernandez, who plans to continue experimenting with the possibilities of basswood. "So I figured, if no one's doing it, why not?"

—Erin Magner